Slowly slowly, catchy monkey ....

Having a hard time on the bike and hitting the usual mid year point by going backwards. 2,200 miles recorded come rain or shine, wind or hail, every mile is outside. Regards to going backwards, over training ? Wrong gearing ? Basically just shit on a bike ? No idea, but the evidence is there. I suspect that ultimately I did not put enough base miles in the can before I started riding hard and fast, or as fast as I can so to speak. The old British base miles are still the recipe to a good summer on the bike. Winter miles for summer smiles as they say. But, something else is odd. I genuinely feel tired in the legs and overly heavy legged which the usual post ride ablutions sort out, including rollers, baths and decent food. But I suspect I am simply just tired - I did 200 miles in 7 days over the last week and I am not as young as I once was. Rest is the order of the day and perhaps a change of outlook with less commute miles going into the mix. Commuting is a great start and end to the day, but it turns a 9 hour day into a 11 hour day and burns the energy, which needs to go back in.  Iron tablets will be bought.

All told, due to using 'power' I can analyse what is occurring and I have gone back to compact cranks (50/34) as anything else in Devon simply a ball ache and just too hard. Gone are my 53/39 days but such is life.  Somewhat oddly my cadence has dropped from 79 in April to 69 now. Surely a sign that I feel a bit spent though I have been hitting bigger hills and longer climbs which will always yield a lower turning speed when you have track legs. 10 rpm is huge though and I will see what is happening over the coming weeks.

So,  in light of this, I tried to simply just put some good miles in the tank Saturday and today and on Saturday I attained 62pbs and today 74pbs with a raft of golds, so it is in the mix somewhere, I just need to get oxygen to the legs as whilst I rode, there was not a great deal of snap.  Could be cheap inner tubes I suppose ;-)

Anyway, I read a great piece the other day about how 'amateur' cyclists like me and all the others are simply shit Sunday league footballers. Quite true that and I completely agree, though I would suggest that a decent pair of footy boots inherently cheaper than a 'good' to 'great' bike.

Fucking cycling. Take the rough with the smooth eh .... live fast die slowly or something like that.

Cheers drive - until next time ....